Searching For Love (Contemporary Cowboy Romance) (Carson Hill Ranch series: Book 2) (10 page)

Finally, they thought they could move him, and proceeded to pack Joseph up on a gurney and put him in the back of the vehicle. The crew drove away slowly until they hit the pavement, Bernard promising to intercept them and follow them to the hospital when he called through the radio.

“Dwayne, I need you to take charge of the drive. You know the route, and you can radio me if there are any questions, anything at all. Understood?” Bernard squeaked through the radio. Dwayne closed his eyes and thought for a moment, taking deep breaths.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t just call it off, sir? We can find a local farm to let the cattle graze until we can get some trucks in here. With you, Casey, Carey, and now Joseph off the drive, there’s no one from Carson Hill except the two younger twins. Wouldn’t you feel better waiting until someone else can join us?”

It was quiet for a moment, so long that Dwayne thought maybe Bernard had cut off his radio, ready to fly after the ambulance carrying his son. Finally, his voice came through the speaker. “Just keep moving, keep a slow pace. I’ll try to contact someone from the ranch and see if I can get them to join you. And, Dwayne,…please be careful.”

“NO!” The younger girl screamed, throwing a wooden chair in the direction of the older woman holding out the spoon. “I don’t want that crap! I want FOOD! Real food! I’m outta here!” Emma bolted for the door, enraged when she figured out for the hundredth time that she was locked in. “Let! Me! OUT!”

The kind woman simply watched Emma’s antics, her expression remaining completely impassive. She didn’t reinforce the girls’ outbursts by trying to talk to them in this state, but she didn’t react to them either. Years of training and experience had taught her how to handle someone coming off a meth addiction, but every single addict was different and suffered in her own way.

“Emma, I promise you’ll feel better if you get some food in you,” the farm’s teacher, Ms. Crane, began in a calm, level voice, still holding out the spoon and bowl. She flinched only slightly when Emma stomped toward her and knocked the bowl out of her hands, sending cream of wheat splattering across the floor and up the wall of the cabin. “That isn’t necessary. Remember to speak to me with words if you need to tell me something.”

Ms. Crane picked up a chair that had been kicked over and righted it at the table before sitting in it. She reached for the deck of cards from the middle of the rough wooden table and began shuffling them idly, doing her best to ignore Emma’s screams. The girl was so skinny even when she first showed up, and a week and a half of trying to fight the effects of the drug that had invaded practically every cell in her body had left her emaciated and scabbed.

“I don’t have to use my words!” Emma screamed in the woman’s ear, slapping at the teacher’s hands and scattering the cards in every direction. Ms. Crane sighed, then wordlessly stood up and crossed the large single room to sit on the overstuffed sofa, picking up a magazine and flipping through the pages without looking at Emma.

“Emma, I understand you’re suffering and I know you will be very sad when you find out that you’ve slapped me. For now, remember to keep your hands to yourself. If you need to hit something, remember what I’ve told you: you may hit the couch cushions.” Ms. Crane pointed to the end of the sofa, which had already been pummeled to the point of lumpiness.

Ms. Crane couldn’t help but notice that Dee was still curled up in a ball on the floor, her face resting against the cool surface of the hardwood floor. She’d stayed there most of yesterday and all through the night, not even letting the older woman cover her with a blanket or wipe at her damp forehead, screaming in actual pain at the slightest touch on her skin. She had been so eerily quiet through her ordeal, Ms. Crane had to keep fighting the urge to check her pulse, mostly because she was afraid of what she might find.

Both girls had been as wretched looking as drowned kittens when she took them from the Carson Hill main house to this cabin some miles away. Mr. Carson had only just bought this smaller ranch at auction, intending to give it to his new daughter-in-law as a wedding present, and it was lucky he did. When Dee and Emma had shown up on the Carson’s ranch one day, there was no way they could go back to town, not after what they’d suffered at the hands of Crazy Mack. When the drugs left their system and they finally began the healing process, they both would face years of therapy to help them overcome the horrors he’d put them through, first getting them addicted and then using that very drug to make them complacent as he prostituted them.

Now, they both alternated between screaming and writhing, with periods of unnerving silence in between. Luckily, at least so far, they had stuck to an impromptu schedule of alternating for Ms. Crane so that they weren’t both screaming at the same time.
Thank goodness for small favors
, Ms. Crane thought to herself sourly.
I don’t know if I could handle both of them freaking out at once. This is why I left teen rehab behind.

“He’s coming for us,” a small voice said during a lull in Emma’s screaming. Ms. Crane immediately jumped up and ran to crouch beside Dee on the floor.

“What? What did you say, dear?” The woman asked, smoothing the sweaty hair back from where it was plastered to the girl’s clammy forehead.

“He’s coming for us. He’ll find us and he’ll kill us.”

“No, sweetie, Mack isn’t going to hurt you. I promise. I won't let him hurt you.”

“He’ll kill us,” Dee repeated quietly, her eyes not moving from the spot on the wall where they’d stared for hours. “He said so. He said he’d kill us if we ever left.”

Ms. Crane sighed, closing her eyes and willing God to give her the words to say that would comfort this poor girl. Even she was surprised at what came out of her mouth.

“No, sweetie. He won’t hurt you, and that is my promise. I swear to you, I’ll kill him first myself.” Ms. Crane gave Dee a determined, confident smile and patted the girl’s hand firmly. She pushed herself up off the floor and was relieved to see that Emma had pretty much burned herself out and was now lying on the floor across the room from her friend. The two girls reminded the teacher of paper dolls, thrown to the ground after their owner tired of playing with them.

Ms. Crane breathed a sigh of relief and went to get some rest herself, settling on the sofa after checking the locks on the doors and each window one more time. Something about Dee’s haunting, hollow voice had her spooked too, or maybe it was just the way the girl seemed so calm, so resigned to what she thought would happen to them. Covering each girl with a blanket before turning in herself, she decided to keep one small lamp burning and her hand on the semi-automatic handgun Mr. Carson had armed her with before sending her on this lonely adventure.

Everyone says things will look brighter in the morning, but someone forgot to tell Dee and Emma. Dee was still curled in a ball and Ms. Crane’s mind went immediately to the possible shutdown of her kidneys, given that she hadn’t had to get up to go to the bathroom in almost forty-eight hours. The girl hadn’t been able to eat or drink anything in that time, either, but that shouldn’t have done it.

“Dee, sweetie, you have to get up,” the teacher began, shaking the girl awake and feeling flooded with relief when she opened her eyes slightly. “Come on, you rested all day yesterday. I’m sorry, but you have to get up and move today.” She put her hands under Dee’s arms and began to lift her, horrified that the girl weighed almost nothing.

Dee didn’t fight her, but she didn’t help support her weight either. She hung limply in Ms. Crane’s arms, too weak from the exhaustion and lack of food to do anything more than be carried. After she managed to get Dee cleaned up and in the bed, Ms. Crane turned her attention to Emma, who was lying in the floor next to a small puddle of her own vomit. She carried Emma next, cleaning her up and putting her in the bed with Dee.

Ms. Crane returned to the small kitchen and got to work making a thin broth, peeling a pot full of potatoes and putting them on to boil to mash into the broth when the girls felt like eating something again. She made sure there was plenty of bottled water in the fridge, and filled a kettle with cold water and tea bags so it would be ready to make sweet tea when the girls felt like drinking something.

After finishing the random chores and cleaning up a little bit around the cabin, she checked on the sleeping girls once more before returning to her chair in the front room. From her chair, she watched out the window for any signs of Mack, all the while keeping a pistol close to her side.

Miranda pulled her cowboy hat further down over her eyes to block the bright sunlight that was intruding on her nap. She’d spent the last week lounging in a chaise beside the hotel pool with Casey, when the two of them hadn’t felt the need to head back up to their room for a while, that is. Ordering in from room service and alternating between the oversized chaise and the bed had left her dreamily lazy and completely blissful.

Casey lounged next to her, his fingers interlaced with hers. He ran his fingertips idly over the heavy wedding band and engagement ring that he’d only put there a matter of days ago. “Yeah, I’m still getting used to that myself,” Miranda said sleepily without opening her eyes, a smile playing across her full lips.

“And I’m getting used to seeing you with clothes on again,” he said in a husky whisper, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing her palm, then placing light kisses on each of her fingertips.

“Seriously? This swim suit is the most clothing I’ve had on all week!” she said with a laugh. “And even this wouldn’t count as covered enough to even go into a convenience store!” Casey smiled at the truth, rolling toward her on the double chaise and pulling her closer to him, turning her so that they both lay on their sides.

“I happen to be incredibly fond of that swimsuit,” he replied, working one finger under the single string that held her top in place, teasing the skin along her back until he made his way around to her side, barely grazing the sensitive skin along her breast until she shivered. “Remember to turn us so we don’t tan like this!” Casey mumbled in her ear in a sleepy, satisfied voice, letting her know that he had no intention of moving soon. Somewhere behind him, his phone buzzed on the table, pinging that he’d received a text. He didn’t release his grip on Miranda by even a fraction, happily ignoring the intrusion.

“Sweetie, aren’t you going to pick that up?”
She asked keeping her eyes closed as she threw her hat down on the stone patio beside her.

“Nope.” He hugged her even closer to him.

“Casey Carson! It could be Gracie! Please?” She asked, reminding him that her baby sister was without her only family member on the cattle drive.

“It can’t possibly be Gracie. Her fingers had to have fallen off by now from all the texts she’s sent you! She’d have to be texting with her toes!”

“First of all, I’m sure she
can
text with her feet...she’s thirteen! And remember, I warned you that she’d do this. I’m the only family she has and she’s never been alone before.”

“I’m only teasing, honey, I knew she was part of the package when I married you. And my whole family is better off for it, for having both of you.” He kissed her firmly on the cheek, but pulled away to pick up his phone like she’d asked. He held it up and pressed the screen, jolting upright after reading the message for only a few seconds. Miranda sat up in alarm, grabbing Casey’s arm as she spoke.

“What is it, sweetie? Is it Gracie?” Casey shook his head silently, his brow creasing as he continued reading. “Oh, God, is it your dad?”

“No, nothing like that. Don’t worry. I just have to call them.” He got up off the lounge chair to make a phone call but Miranda stopped him and pulled him back, sitting him down beside her and taking his face between her hands. She looked at his eyes intensely, determination in her tone of voice.

“Casey Carson, do not walk away from me. Whatever business you have back home involves me now, too. We don’t shield anything from each other, and we don’t keep secrets. I’m a Carson now, too…remember?”

Casey closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers for a moment. He nodded. “I’m sorry, you’re completely right. This is so new to me, too. I just wanted to protect you.”

“Protect me from what? What’s wrong?” she pleaded, taking his hands.

“There’s a problem back at the ranch. Don’t worry, Gracie’s fine,” he said, putting a finger to Miranda’s lips when she started to interrupt so he could read the series of text messages that continued to cause his phone to beep. “She’s still on the drive. But Carey’s at the house for some reason and he’s been hurt, and Joseph is on his way to the hospital. Dad’s meeting him there. Apparently…Crazy Mack came around, causing problems and making all kinds of threats. He’s the reason Carey’s injured.”

“Oh, no! What do we need to do?” she asked, searching Casey’s face.

“I’m so sorry to ask you this, but would it be horrible to cut our honeymoon a little short? I promise, when the drive is over and everyone’s safe, we’ll pick right up where we left off.”

“Of course, Casey! Anywhere you are
is
my honeymoon, for the rest of our lives, and I don’t care whether it’s a fancy resort or a cow pasture. But you know that family comes first. Where should we go, home or to meet up with the drive?” Miranda was already gathering her towel and sunscreen, ready to head to the room and pack up.

“Well, I’m sure my dad will head back to the ranch once Joseph’s released from the hospital. And you know…I’m sorry to tell you this…but Gracie’s still with the drive and there’s no one from the family there with her.”
Miranda’s eyes widened in shock, “Wait, I promise she’s in good hands, those people might as well be our family. But I know you’d feel better if we were with her. I would too.”

Miranda nodded, exhaling a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “You’re right. Let me go get my boots on, cowboy, we got us a cattle drive to get to!” she said with a nervous smile. Casey pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her passionately, oblivious to anyone who might see them.
Let them look, I’m the luckiest man alive
, he thought as he deepened their kiss.

They walked hand in hand to the bank of elevators that led to the suites, feeling the disappointment of cutting their time together short but knowing that they had obligations that wouldn’t wait. If they hurried, they could be on the road within the hour, and make the
four-hour drive to rendezvous with the group by nightfall.